Bible Study Methods

Bible Study Methods

Introduction

A casual reading of the Bible can give us little benefit, however, deep and sincere study may result in a transformed life and a close relationship with Jesus Christ. Jesus himself commands us to study, "Search the Scriptures" (John 5:39). There are different methods to study Bible, four of them are explained here:

Biographical Study

his method consists of choosing a Bible character and to explore his life. This requires having a match, because in some cases one may find all details in one book about the life of an individual, however; in other cases, you must consult unusual books to get all available information in the Bible about that person (Newman, 2010). Once we write and read all the relevant passages, we can begin to sketch his life answering the following questions:

Birth And Childhood

Who were his parents? Were there any special circumstances at birth? How was his family, had brothers / sisters? What was your childhood like and where you grew up? What time did he live? What were the historical circumstances and / or cultural surrounding this person?

Adulthood

What was the profession of this person? What special circumstances of his life tell us the Bible? Did he marry? Did he had children? What were the circumstances of his death? We do not always have the data for these questions, sometimes the Bible tells us about the birth and infancy of people, sometimes they do not know how or when they died or what was his family about (West, 2007).

Application

Once, we have become familiar with this person and his life, we can get the personal application of what we studied. What were the good things this person carried out? What were his shortcomings? Are there examples to follow in our life? Did he make mistakes, which we should avoid?

Study Theme

This method consists of choosing a topic or word and study throughout the Bible. Words like sin, salvation, justice, resurrection, love, commandments, judge, law, judgment, Holy Spirit, heart, day of the Lord, grace, redemption, are all excellent subjects for study. Sometimes a theme can encompass more than one word (for example, "Dead, dead, death, hades, sheol" can be studied as a single item). In other cases, the case of very large issues with plenty of verses you can choose. However, several studies are not easy to interpret (for example, the Study the words "road, roads" in the book of Isaiah) For this type of study, it is essential to have a perfect match. In this study, it is convenient to read the verse set in the agreement. One must read the verses immediately preceding and following, in order to place the text in context and avoid misunderstandings. Someone has said that "text without context is pretext only". Isolating one verse out of context can distort its contents until it say something that the author wanted to express. As every Bible study, topical study must end with a particular application: Did I learn something I did not know before, about this ...